


I Didn't Know You Cared

by Turbulent_Muse



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Edited in the middle of the night I'm so sorry for any typos, Gen, Micah you CAN read this one, Mostly fluff with a dash of angst at the end, Pre-Canon, Sickfic, there's no season two spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turbulent_Muse/pseuds/Turbulent_Muse
Summary: The Rowdy 3 show up every time Dirk’s in a situation that’s too big to handle by himself. One time the danger wasn’t just from the men with guns.





	I Didn't Know You Cared

If Dirk had realized he was getting the flu when he woke up he probably would have just stayed in bed. Of course that wouldn’t have worked out well for long since he was out of money. Eventually the manager of the hotel would have dragged him out onto the street instead of just yelling. But the sniffle and sore throat Dirk had had this morning were quickly snowballing into something truly terrible as he walked down the street to meet his client while carrying everything he owned in a duffel bag on his back. 

If he could finish the case today maybe the universe would reward him with a bed to sleep in and ideally some tamiflu. Or maybe he’d end up in the hospital again. Either way he could get some sleep. He wondered if maybe he could just close his eyes and let himself drift along the stream of creation until he arrived at the end of the mystery without doing anything. The moment he thought that he was roughly grabbed and shoved into a nearby building. He wondered if that meant his plan was working or not. Then he heard the click of a gun being cocked. 

“Shit.” 

“Don’t try anything.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Dirk said tiredly but sincerely. 

“Now get moving.” 

“Oh god can we please take the elevator instead, it’s just that—No? No. Okay, fine, moving.” 

After climbing definitely too many stairs Dirk was shoved into another room containing more people with guns and that was honestly the limit of the effort he could put into observing his surroundings. 

“You need to stop looking into this.” One of the people said, pointing their gun at him. 

“Listen,” Dirk replied “I would honestly love to, at least for today, but that’s not actually physically possible…or metaphysically possible, maybe. One of those two.” 

“You think this is some kind of joke?” They said, stepping closer with the gun. They kept saying more things after that but Dirk didn’t have the energy to focus on anything but his aching head and how the floor was starting to look really comfortable. Then he heard it. 

A loud and fast punk rock beat and an engine that truly, breathily, growled. Suddenly adrenaline made him forget a significant percentage of his bodily complaints. 

“Um, look, I would love to do whatever it is you’ve been telling me to do but could we finish talking about it somewhere else? Anywhere else? We need to leave right now.” 

“Hey! You’re not in charge here!” 

“Yes, of course,” Dirk continued frantically. “But if we could just—”

“Don’t move towards the exit! I have a fucking gun pointed at you, man, aren’t you scared?” 

The engine had stopped and now Dirk heard shouts.

“Trust me, I’m absolutely terrified.” 

“Yo, what the fuck is this about?” Said one of the others who had moved to the window to check out the noise. “These guys your friends?” 

“Absolutely not, in fact—”

They all heard the sound of a door being kicked in. 

“Oh no, it’s too late.” 

“Hey, what are you talking about? Hey!” 

Dirk let himself sink to the floor, too tired even to curl up into a ball. Now that escape was impossible the sickness had overcome the fight or flight response. He just lay there with his eyes closed while around him he heard sound of yelling, a few gunshots, things getting broken, and running footsteps. As the chaos wound down he had time to think that has was definitely having a shit day and then he passed out. 

……..

The Rowdy 3 were having a great day. They were well fed and well entertained and just about to leave to go find new fun when Gripps noticed something. The guy was still just laying there on the floor. He usually didn’t try to get up while they were still there but this was different, he was too still and too splayed out. 

“Hey, something’s up.” 

The other rowdies stopped and turned back, circling around the man on the floor. Vogel poked him a few times with his bat. 

“We didn’t break him, did we?” 

“Naw, weirdos like him don’t get broken.” Cross replied. “Only boring people. But something’s wrong. He doesn’t smell right.” 

Martin closed his eyes and leaned in closer, inhaling deeply. 

“I think...he’s sick.”

“What do we do?” Gripps asked. 

“Yeah, if he’s sick we can’t just leave him there on the floor. There's not a bed or a blanket in here or anything.” Cross said as he looked around the room they had recently destroyed. 

The Rowdy 3 looked at each other and came to a silent decision. 

“Grab him.” Martin said, and Cross and Gripps picked up Dirk’s sleeping form and carried him back to the van. 

…..

When Dirk awoke he was covered in blankets. He had no idea how or why. He opened his eyes to see himself surrounded by worn and torn red velvet. It looked like he was in some sort of car and he heard voices in the distance...and music. 

The realization hit him, bringing a wave of terror with it, and he bolted up to a sitting position. Which was a mistake, because it immediately felt like his head was exploding. He groaned

“Whoa whoa whoa there brit, chill take it easy. You’re pretty messed up.” 

Dirk focussed his eyes and saw a concerned face looking down at him with a circle tattooed around one eye. Someone was sitting in the van with him. He realized he recognized the face and the voice, although he had only ever heard it shouting before. The man helped him move the nest of blankets and, as Dirk now noticed, jackets over so he was propped up sitting against the side of the van. Dirk’s own jacket had been folded up behind his head as a pillow. Dirk’s tie had miraculously not strangled him in his sleep, he took it off and put in in his pocket. He wanted to say something, a lot of things, many of them wordless screaming out of a variety of different emotions, but his throat felt dry and swollen. 

The man put a hand to Dirk’s forehead and made a disapproving noise. 

“You got a fever still. Here,” he handed Dirk a bottle of ibuprofen and a Fanta. “We told Vogel to grab ‘orange juice’ but he just grabbed a bunch of orange colored stuff.” 

Dirk eagerly took the offered medecine, feeling too shitty to object. After taking a drink of the sugary soda he felt more capable of speech but decided that screaming was probably still beyond his capabilities. He opted to instead ask a question. 

“Why are you doing this?” 

“You’re sick.” Said a matter-of-fact voice from a figure sitting on a crate nearby and tending a campfire. 

“Yeah!” continued a voice from on top of the van, “Don’t you know what you’re supposed to do when someone’s sick?” 

Dirk saw a pair of long skinny legs and then an entire gangly skinny body drop down from above and a young, very young, barely adult, face greeted him with a manic grin and handed him a can. Dirk took it. It was chicken soup. 

“Here you go!” The boy yelled excitedly and then ran off towards the fourth member of the Rowdy 3, the one Dirk had always assumed was the leader. He was sitting a ways off and observing Dirk and the others with a still, calculating glance.

The one sitting just outside the van got up and wordlessly took the can from Dirk. He removed the label and scraped the edges of the can against a brick until he could pry off the top. Then he propped the can up above the fire and sat waiting. 

Dirk realized with a shock that the Rowdy 3 were trying to take care of him. Memories from whatever lives they had had before Blackwing, and perhaps some basic human (for a rather loose definition of human) instinct had allowed them to have some idea of how to care for a sick person even though their only contact with civilized society was to try to smash it. Dirk sniffled, and the one in the van with him pulled some loose tissues out of a jacket pocket and offered them to him. 

Dirk thought about what the youngest one had said to him. Dirk watched enough to tv to know the basics of what to do for a sick person, but he had never had to take care of anyone himself before. He had never had anyone to take care of. And the last time someone had taken care of him when he was sick was when he was nine years old, it was a hazy memory. In Blackwing the only thing being sick meant was medicine given with his meals and possibly reduced testing. Since the breakout he had had to take care of himself, which mostly meant just staying in bed until he was hungrier than he was tired and then dragging himself to the nearest store to buy nyquil and ramen. But he hadn’t been this severely sick on his own before. 

The man by the campfire poured the now hot soup into a mug and then delivered it to Dirk. Dirk thanked him and took a sip of the broth. It was good soup. It was a bit of a cold day but the fire and blankets were keeping him warm. Dirk decided, after some thought, that he was simply too sick to be terrified. Instead he was just going to drink his soup and be grateful he wasn’t passed out in a gutter somewhere. 

He finished the soup, drank some more of the soda and spent a while half asleep just listening to the sounds of the campfire and the music while the rowdies drank beer and smashed things that they had found god knows where. In his more lucid moments he watched them. Sometimes one of them would throw things for another to hit with a baseball bat or a hammer and when they found something relatively sturdy they would juggle it between them, seeing how long they could keep it in the air. After what he guessed had been four hours he took more ibuprofen. At some point he was given more soup and soda. By the time the sun started setting he saw that the rowdies had settled down, at least for now, and were all lounging around the campfire. 

Dirk was tired so he tried to shift his blanket nest back into a position that allowed him to fully lie down. The rowdy who had heated up the soup noticed him struggling and helped him. Then the youngest one saw them and ran up to the van.

“You’re not going to sleep yet are you?!” 

Worry started to fight with Tired and Sick for attention in Dirk’s head. 

“Um, I was kind of planning on it.” 

“But you’re sick! When you’re sick you can’t go to sleep without a bedtime story!” 

The rowdy that was helping dirk adjust the blankets smiled and the the two other older ones looked embarrassed. 

“Oh, um…” The one with the circle tattoo said. 

The assumed leader spoke up. 

“Now, Vogel...um…he probably don’t—”

“Actually,” Dirk decided to chime in, if these people were nursing him back to health then he could at least save them from an awkward conversation. He looked directly the youngest one “Vogel, was it? I would...love it, if you were to tell me a bedtime story.” 

The older rowdies looked relieved and Vogel’s face became a grin bigger than Dirk had thought was humanly possible. Vogel then launched into a story that had more sound effects, shadow puppets, and what could probably be described as interpretive dance in it than it had words. The narrative was also mainly about explosions. At the end Vogel started jumping up and down with excitement.

“Did you like it, did you like it?!” 

“Um, yes, it was very...exciting.” 

Vogel cheered and ran off, bouncing around the campsite. 

“He’s really happy.” Stated the one in the van with Dirk. The one with the circle around his eye walked up. 

“Thanks for letting him do that. He likes getting to tell the stories.” 

“Oh, no problem really, it seemed important to him.” 

“If he had been sad ‘cause of you we would have thrown you outta the campsite.” Said the other, just as matter of factly as he said everything else.

“Oh.” Dirk responded, unsure how else to. The one with the circle tattoo punched the other playfully in the arm then went back to the campfire. The remaining Rowdy looked down at Dirk. 

“You all set?” He asked as though he hadn’t just threatened him. 

“Yes, I believe so.” 

“Good.” And he walked off. 

Dirk watched him and saw that the Rowdy 3 were all huddled together in a tangled mess of a pile. Dirk got the feeling that they weren’t just sleeping like that for warmth. They were sharing a single huge blanket (Dirk figured he had the rest of what they usually slept on) and somehow even though they were on the ground they looked a lot cozier than he was. 

Dirk closed his eyes and thought about the three older men telling bedtime stories to the youngest when he was sick, taking care of Vogel over the years, even back when they were in Blackwing. Dirk realized he could picture exactly what Vogel would’ve looked like as a young child. He had seen it, if only in glances through a whirlwind of chaos. When they had all broken out of Blackwing the littlest rowdy had been a good deal younger than even Dirk was and the others were already adults, or at least they had looked like adults to a scared sixteen year old Dirk. Dirk thought back to his own time in Blackwing, nights when he was sick and nights when he was just utterly alone. During those nights he thinks he would have really appreciated a bedtime story. 

…… 

When Dirk woke up the sun had just barely begun to rise and he felt better. Still sick and terrible but well enough to get up and walk around. As far as he could tell he was the only one awake. He carefully extricated himself from the pile of blankets and jackets he was under and got out of the van as silently as he could. He was pleasantly surprised to see that his duffel bag was also in the van. He then put his own jacket back on and stretched, his muscles a bit stiff from spending a day lying down without much more cushioning than that provided by the van’s red velvet interior. 

He grabbed his bag and looked around, trying to discern where exactly he was in relation to the city he had been in before. There was a road nearby and it seemed like they weren’t too far from civilization. Dirk made an educated guess as to which direction he needed to go and was about to start walking when he heard someone behind him clear their throat to get his attention. 

Dirk turned around. It was the rowdy leader, Dirk hadn’t noticed he’d been gone and he was just now returning to the camp carrying a large plastic grocery bag. For a moment they just stared at each other in the gray early morning light. Then Dirk felt the need to break the silence. 

“I didn’t think it was necessary to wait and say goodbye.” He left out the fact that he had been slightly worried that the Rowdy 3 wouldn’t let him leave. 

“Course not.” The leader replied. “Not like you and us are friends.” 

There was something in the other man’s voice, not quite regret or sadness but perhaps a hint of dissatisfaction or offense, that made Dirk angry. One day of kindness didn’t erase the years of torment. 

“I figured it out, y’know, why you didn’t just leave me there on the floor.” Dirk’s voice had a bitter edge to it now. “I’m your food source. If anything happened to me then you all would have to go find someone else to periodically terrorize. It’s more convenient for you if I’m alive and relatively well.” 

The other man looked at Dirk with a sharp blue gaze that seemed to see him entirely, staring through who he was in this moment and into the past all the way back to the scared child Dirk had been when they first met. The leader of the Rowdy 3 seemed to measure that child up against the man Dirk had grown into, the man standing before him today. It was not a judgemental gaze in any emotional sense of the word. It was merely a clinical assessment of facts, a cataloging of information. Dirk realized that this man had watched him grow up just as much as Dirk himself had watched Vogel. Maybe even more so. After an eternal moment the man seemed to find all he had been looking for and he spoke again.

“That may be true, but is there anyone else out there who was gonna take care of you for any better reason.” 

Another moment of silence stretched between them, providing the older man with his answer. Then he tied together the handles of the bag he was holding and tossed it at Dirk. Dirk caught it (barely) and looked inside. The bag contained a bottle of DayQuil, a bottle of NyQuil, more ibuprofen, a few packets of tissues, orange juice, several packages of cup noodles, and what looked like several hundred dollars. Dirk considered asking where the other man had gotten all of this but decided he didn’t actually want to know.

“Thank you.” Dirk said, feeling slightly guilty but not very. 

“So long, British Guy, see ya next time we’re hungry.” The rowdy leader said, all but ignoring Dirk’s thanks. 

Dirk, unsure of how to respond, just started walking. 

“The place we found you is in the other direction.” 

Dirk wordlessly turned around and began walking the other way. 

......

It was a short walk back to the city but not short enough. Dirk found a cheap hotel and got himself a room as fast as he could. It was all he could do to make himself shower and take some NyQuil before he collapsed on the bed. 

Dirk glanced at the pile of dirty clothes that he had left on the floor. As soon as he was feeling up to it he’d have to find somewhere to do laundry. He’d probably have to use extra strength detergent to get out the smell of campfire smoke and sweat and beer and cigarettes and dirt and however else one described the scent of a family of hyper-violent psychic vampires who lived in a van and never showered. 

On a crazy impulse Dirk reached down and grabbed his jacket off the floor, brought it up to his face, and inhaled deeply. 

Yep. It definitely didn’t smell like anywhere he could ever belong. With that thought Dirk dropped the jacket and passed out on the hotel room’s soft warm bed. He dreamt, as he always did when sick from this point on, of orange fanta and loud music and bedtime stories.


End file.
